About

Medieval Style Cover, also known as Bardcore/Tavernwave refers to a musical genre in which people cover an existing song with instrumentation that was more common during the Middle Ages.

Origin

The style has been growing on YouTube since the late 2000s. Musician and composer Paul Vakna^[1] was one of the earliest experimenters in the genre, posting medieval music on his YouTube channel since February 8th, 2009, and has generated over 17 million views as of June 8th, 2020. Of his videos, the "Medieval Music – 'Hardcore' Party Mix" (shown below) has gained over 7 million views since it was posted on July 6th, 2013.

Spread

Others experimented with the style in the coming years. For example, composer LjB0 would also venture into a "Medieval style"; most notably with "Halo Theme (Ye Olde Medieval Version)". It premiered on August 29th, 2017 and has 1.7 million views as of June 9th, 2020 (shown below, left). User Algal the Bard posted a medieval cover of "Toxicity" by System Of A Down on December 19th, 2017, gaining over 580,000 views (shown below, right).

2020 Spread

On April 20, Youtube user "Cornelius Link" posted two different versions of "Astronomia", a popular song paired with the Dancing Pallbearers meme, in a "Medieval style" ("Tavern Version" below), garnering over 3 million views as of June 8th, 2020. True to the style of its content, the thumbnail of the video has been generated by the Historic Tale Construction Kit; an online device responsible for many Medieval Tapestry Edits.

On May 11th, Link also posted an instrumental version of Foster the People's Pumped Up Kicks, which received over 3 million views within a month's time (shown below). The comment section consists mainly of attempts to recreate the aptest lyrics and have users upvote the ones which they like the best. As the song's original lyrics are written as a monologue from the perspective of a homicidal teenager, who fantasizes about murdering other youths with "pumped up kicks" (or luxury footwear)^[2] with a gun, commentators also reference to the Umpqua Community College shooter Chris Harper-Mercer, infamously warning /r9k/ readers not to attend school the following day if they lived in the Northwest United States.

Inspired by one of the lyrical suggestions by Cryopinacle, YouTube user the_miracle_aligner posted a video that has him singing these words over the instrumental version by Link (shown below, left). It premiered on May 21st and has over half a million views in less than twenty days. On June 6th, the_miracle_aligner posted a medieval rendition of Creedence Clearwater Revival's Fortunate Son (shown below, right).^[3]

Other notable creators include Hildegard von Blingin, whose cover of Radiohead's "Creep" gained over 1.1 million views (shown below, left), and Wysterstone, whose cover of A-ha's "Take On Me" gained over 129,000 views (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search interest

External references